What does Dns.GetHostEntry Method(String) actually do?
This is the list of addresses returned by
var ips = System.Net.Dns.GetHostEntry("microsoft.com").AddressList;
foreach (var ip in ips)
Console.WriteLine(ip);
// output
64.4.11.37
65.55.58.201
And these are the A records pulled from network-tools.com, DNS query.
Answer records
microsoft.com A 64.4.11.37
microsoft.com A 65.55.58.201
So I'd say it does pull A records.
Dns.GetHostEntry
is built on top of the Windows API and does not use the DNS protocol directly. If IPv6 is enabled it will call getaddrinfo
. Otherwise it will call gethostbyaddr
. These functions may use the local %SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
file, DNS or even NETBIOS to resolve a host name to an IP address. Resolving a host name to an IP address using DNS will use CNAME records to find the A record.
You can test this by resolving www.google.com
that at least right now has a CNAME record that points to www.l.google.com
. Using Dns.GetHostEntry
will return the IP addresses from the A records for www.l.google.com
.